Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Writing

What marks the beginning of a new era?

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Picture of sunflowers at sunrise

I’m not sure, but I always know it when I see the new era glistening up ahead.

We have been water skiing since 1983. I’m talking slalom, not wake boarding.

My husband competed in slalom with speeds up to 34 and stretching out with only one hand on the rope handle as he cut through the water around the balls set at a specific distance in a lane with gates at either end. Each pass, they would shorten the rope or raise the speed.

If you’re not familiar with competition slalom skiing, that’s the best description I can give.

I skied too, but I don’t need to give you any dramatic description. I can use one word. Cadillac. I crossed the wake, I cut the water, and I rode my Cadillac ski smoothly, but without flash. My husband does flash.

We sold our ski boat recently. Having not taken it out in more than two years, we accepted that we were done with skiing. We’ve moved on to sailing. An entirely different water sport.

An entirely different era in our lives. It glistens on the wind pushed waves, far different from when it would glisten on glass-like water at dawn.

We’ve had a few of these eras:

  • moving from the west to the northwest
  • moving from the northwest to the south
  • having a baby
  • our daughter graduating high school and leaving for college
  • the death of one of our Labradors after thirteen years of selfless devotion
  • the closing of a furniture story after fifteen years of purchasing just the right piece
  • our daughter graduating college (just this week)

Eras leave us behind and kick us forward into the next.

My writing is full of eras, too.

One of my series was an era. I started out writing time travel novels. I loved reading them for many years. Writing them was just as delightful. I wrote five of them and then I wrote one fantasy novel and….

End of an era.

The world shifted on its axis and a whole new view hung before me. I wrote three books in that series and started another series, also fantasy. I couldn’t go back, even though I had two more books planned for that time travel series.

I pulled my first series out of publication. It had been my “kindergarten” entrance into writing. I learned a lot from it, but I didn’t want it out there representing me. Not with two fantasy series growing every three to four months.

I have another era hanging out ahead of me. Not far away, (light at end of tunnel metaphor could go here) there is change coming. I still have time, but I see it coming. I think we always see them coming. Sometimes we close our eyes to them.

But I’m prepared for this one. I’ll be looking into revamping that time travel series. Not this year, may be the next. It’s not that I think I can go back. You can never go back. But sometimes you can revamp.

I returned to college after earning an associates degree and working for a few years. I earned my bachelors. Then went after my masters. I love going to college. So much to learn. I didn’t go back to the same experience.

I went forward with what experience I had gained and acquired more. I’ll do that with my time travel series.

My daughter’s doing that as she leaves her era of college. I’m not sure what era lies before her, golden and glistening, but one does. She’ll know it when she watches it drop behind her, the next shiny era rising ahead.

One day, time travel will slide back in, but fantasy, dragons and magic still glisten ahead of me along with that new era just ahead. I’ll keep writing. I’ll keep learning. I’ll miss my daughter being part of our sense of home while she starts her new era.

Somewhere up ahead, I know she’s part of another era I get to take part in. For now, I’ll work with this one and anticipate the next one.

What Makes Ten Weeks Feel Like Just Enough?

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I have a plan and ten weeks stretching out before me waiting to be filled.

It’s a simple plan.

  • Revise some books.
  • Approve a final edit (or two)
  • Write another Solstice Dragon World novel.
  • Work with my cover artist for the new fantasy series in the works
  • Update a few files
  • Paperback the Standing Stone series (at least two of them. The rest I’ll shoehorn in as the year progresses.)
  • Hardback the Solstice Dragon World novels
  • Sail a lake or two
  • Ride the tandem bike a few hundred miles
  • Beta read (provide feedback) a novel for a fellow writer
  • Write three blog posts
  • Write three newsletters (which you can join by clicking the Sign Up! tab at the top)

Today was Day One. This is how I did.

  1. Two thousands words written on the final chapter of The Wielder’s Grimoire, book 5 of Standing Stone.
  2. Six chapters revised.
  3. This is post number one. I’ll give myself half a credit at this point.
  4. I did exercise, just not on the tandem bicycle or the sailboat (treadmill today)
  5. Finalized the paperback version of The Sharded Boy (won’t publish it until I have The Shifter Shard ready to go as well)

Not bad for Day One.

Tomorrow will be more productive.

  • Another two thousands words (or more. I won’t argue against more.)
  • Two more chapters revised
  • Probably another treadmill day or yoga. I’ll know when I wake up which is the best option. Probably treadmill as it tends to warm me up for writing
  • Complete the preparations on The Dragon Question‘s file for hardback version.
  • Start the prep on the hardcover image
  • Start the June newsletter

I know this is not the most exciting post I’ve made, but I’m in the mood for organizing. It’s sort of like the nesting activities of a pregnant women close to term. I need to get things situated, their order of importance figured out and anything that only takes a day or two out of the way to make room for the big stuff on the horizon.

Ironically, I don’t write from an outline. My books tend to flow like a river from the headwaters on a mountain. Words trickle in and gather into sentence rivulets. The rivulets join and make a stream. More streams rush on and form a narrow river that then cuts high banks to its final destination. Novel.

Where an idea begins ~ mine took me here

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Picture of The Sharded Boy cover

I am about to embark on writing the fifth book of the Standing Stones series. My daughter reminds me regularly this is the series that writes itself. It is an apt reminder.

It started with a friend wanting me to write a guest post for her blog. She gave me a set of possible topics, one of which was fantasy. I hadn’t written a fantasy before, but I’ve read thousands.

It was the only topic I thought I could write fairly well on. I had an idea, nothing particularly new, but I hadn’t seen it written about in the manner I was thinking, so why not?

My brainstorm idea: the rules that govern the world of a story create pathways that as the story proceeds limit the choices available to both the writer and the character. Those limited choices funnel the writer and the character to its ultimate conclusion. Nothing new, right.

But I’m a teacher, and examples are paramount in putting across expectations. So I immediately began thinking about a set of rules for a fantasy world: wielders of magic must carry with them a heavy flat stone which they must stand on in order to wield the essence that is the base of their magic and is embedded in the stone. What if there was a wielder that couldn’t carry his stone or found it extremely difficult? How would that act as a governor of his experience.

From there, I considered a series of questions.

  • Why can’t he carry it?
  • Are there alternatives?
  • What caused this situation?
  • What can he or she do about this if anything?
  • What other rules apply?
  • and the list goes on…

I got to the bottom of the parameters of this fantasy world and how it would guide the story and was so invested, I could not send her the post. I set it aside while I finished up a book I was writing.

I thought I might write a short story with this created character: Jahl Pratter and his struggle with fitting into the demands of being a wielder.

I began writing another book in my then current series and continued to let Jahl wait for when I had time to write that short story.

I got stuck, not just stuck: I lost faith in the book I was writing. I had to step away.

I started another book that had been running around in my head. Over the course of a couple of months, the conflicts of this new book became all to real to me, and I could not face it. Both my father-in-law and my mother were showing serious signs of dementia, a key component of that novel.

Both have since passed away, and 20k of words are waiting for me to come back. I can’t just yet.

I returned to the previous series’ book and struggled along before again setting it aside. Jahl beckoned.

I thought writing a short story might lubricate the wheels. And it was all laid out in my head. It wouldn’t take much time to write it.

At about 20K of words and no where near the middle, never mind the end, I realized I was writing a book, and it just kept writing itself. I was along for the ride.

Cover of The Shifter Shard

Book 2 grabbed hold, and I said, “Okay, let’s roll.”

Before I had time to take a breath, Book 3 was in the works.

Cover The Heart of Lal

I stepped back to the fifth book in that earlier series I kept setting aside and finished it, quite satisfied with the result. I had hated it the majority of the time I spent writing it. It just never felt good enough. By the time I finished it, I quite liked it. One unpublished blog post produced four books.

I started a new fantasy series of standalone novels, Solstice Dragon World. After writing three of them, I returned to the Standing Stone series and wrote its fourth book as easily as I had written the first three. I love that series and have been thrilled to learn from my readers that I am not alone.

Cover of The Sand Wielders

Standing Stone Book 5 is next on my agenda. I’ve been holding it off while I have finished my current series: Kavin Cut Chronicles, just weeks away from publishing the third in the trilogy.

I suspect Standing Stone’s Book 5 will be the end of the series. Of course, given its beginnings, I can’t be certain.

If you would like to check out any of my fantasy series, click the tab at the top of the web page labeled All Books. You’ll find links to all the main retailers where they are sold. Just click on the series title of each and work your way through the books.

Eating the Elephant One Bite at a Time

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Photo by Zoë Reeve on Unsplash

I never have enough time, and I am coming to terms with that. When I was much younger (yes, at 60 I still consider myself young), I would ask myself, “Five years from now, are you going to wish you had/hadn’t done this?”

The answer would guide my decision. It is that question which made me decide more than ten years ago to redraft three books I had stuffed in a digital closet and publish them.

But, did I mention I’m 60 now?

The question has far more permutations than it used to. Time is a commodity I am realizing is more limited than it once was. I can’t say I have 50 years ahead of me. OK, I might, but I’d probably be pushing that senility bubble a bit hard, and it would be pushing back.

Now, every second counts. But there is this elephant on my plate. Though I have reduced its size by cutting out the time suckers it used to include for padding, it’s still bigger than my plate, bigger than the table the plate sits on, and occasionally bigger than the room housing the table.

I still have to eat it one bite at a time.

That’s what I do.

Sometimes the elephant gets bigger instead of smaller, but I can only chew so fast and spoon in only so big a bite.

Still time is waving hands at me. It’s a limited commodity. I’m chewing as fast as I can.

I cut out Twitter, Goodreads and settled on Facebook and this website for my time. I started a newsletter.

Click the Signup! button on the menu bar to join it.

The rest is reserved for three major parts of the elephant.

  • Writing (that’s the head of the elephant)
  • Marketing (way down by the tail)
  • Teaching-related stuff (my day job — the body)
  • Extra: Health (somewhere down at the feet, maybe underfoot)

Until I retire, the majority of my effort goes to my day job, which, unfortunately, grabs a huge slice each day of my off time. Grading is a bear, quickly followed by planning, training, parent contacts and email.

Photo by Becca on Unsplash

It’s very hard to eat a bear when you are still working on an elephant. All that hair gets caught in the throat.

Don’t ask me about dessert. All I’ll say is my husband is a sweetheart; our daughter, sheer perfection; and my Labrador, loyal and true.

My point.

I have to have a point to this?

I’m eating one bite at a time. That’s what I tell myself, and it helps. My only issue is the cook keeps bringing in new elephants as soon as I finish one. But one bite at a time still works.

Have I got a story for you?

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Roses

I was busy writing Book 3 of the Kavin Cut Chronicles, and these two characters joined the cast. They were so intriguing.

One had been a minor character, a brief walk-on, but he left such a strong impression, I wondered if he would be back.

Lord Laurents was a charming, elderly fellow with a perpetual smile on his face, impossible not to like. Kambry certainly appreciated his quick grin and teasing words.

But when his wife, the stiff-lipped Lady Laurents showed up and other characters started to talk about her, I was sold on the idea that these two were not going to melt into the woodwork as easily in the third book as they had in book 1 and 2.

Chapter one of Book 3 had the Lady Laurents front and center. I was even more curious about how sweet Lord Laurents ended up with such a sour-puss for a wife.

They needed a short story focused on the two of them.

I stopped everything and spent a Saturday finding out what drew charming, sweet-natured Laurents to this “caustic” woman.

“A Sultry Buzz” was the result. I made it available to my newsletter subscribers, giggling the whole time.

A Sultry Buss story cover
Story cover

Now that I know the Laurents’ secret, I grin every time I think about those two.

Here’s the first paragraphs:

Standing at the entrance of the room, Bernum Laurents folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes. “I’ve been staying close to home, avoiding trouble and sitting in on the council meetings, and now you say I need to settle down?” He pressed the back of his head to the floral-papered wall and exhaled noisily.

Mother slid her embroidery needle neatly though the pale, stretched linen. She sat with her back straight though the chair back was canted, a floral blanket covering her lap down to what he knew were thin, weak ankles. Her legs seemed to strain against the straps that crossed over them and held them in place. “Don’t be dramatic. You’re ready now,” she said, not looking up as she tugged the needle, one thumbnail holding the twist of thread in place for the rosette.

“I wouldn’t say I’m ready at all for marriage,” he said. He trod across the drawing room until he was only a few feet from his mother. A low hassock was the nearest seat to her, and he folded his lean frame up like a trestle table after giving the squat seat a glare. Why with all the chairs in the room had she chosen this one to keep close? He gazed at her strapped-in legs and instantly grew contrite. He’d loved to sit near her when he was a boy and had routinely chosen the lowest seats so she could feel tall once and awhile. She probably kept the hassock here just for him.

“You’re twenty-seven years old. It’s time you chose a life partner.”

“Okay, let’s follow that argument. ‘Time I chose.’ So why have you invited the caustic Joulette Dwantry to dinner? Why did you insist I attend? And why when I asked if you knew Miss Dwantry did you say it didn’t matter if you knew her, only that I got to know her?”

“I’m not allowed to make suggestions, Bernum?”

“Then the demand that I appear promptly at six in court clothes for a family dinner was a suggestion?”  

“Of course, not. I want you to impress the girl.” She tugged the thread through again.

And the rest is their story. If you’re interested in reading more about these two, you have a few choices. You can join my monthly newsletter.

  • Click the tab titled Sign Up at the top of my webpage and signup for my newsletter. The short story links are always in the newsletter about mid-way down.
  • You can read Book 1 in the Kavin Cut Chronicles trilogy and click the newsletter link at the end of the book. And you’ll find the short story links about mid-way down the newsletter.
  • You can read both books in the series and at the end of Book 2 click the link to sign up and get the short story in a few clicks and not have to wait for the newsletter to come out that month, as signing up from Book 2 includes an offer to receive “A Sultry Buzz.”

Writing this short story was such fun that I’m hoping to write one each month. October just started, so I’ll be waiting for that itching short-story-writing sensation.

I can’t make promises that there will be more, the situation with teaching and writing is not conducive to adding to my load, but I squeezed this one it. How hard can it be?

Don’t answer that. Let’s keep up the charade that I can eek out the time if I try really hard. And I’m going to try really hard. There’s a map I thinking about making, too. But we’ll see how that goes. That requires more time to eek out.

Busy in 2020 by an order of 4 maybe 5

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I thought an update was do. I’ve been writing, editing, redrafting, planning and preparing paperbacks.

This won’t be a long post, more of a list of what is in the works.

  • The fourth book in the Solstice Dragon World, To Harbor a Dragon, is now up as a pre-order set to upload at the end of April. A paperback version will follow shortly after the eBook goes live.
  • The third book in the Solstice Dragon World, Dira’s Dragon, is in the works to be available in paperback, tentative deadline is set for mid-March.
  • My new series Kavin Cut Chronicles is moving along nicely. Covers are in the works next week with Ryn Katryn Digital Art. (Loraine has done all my covers. I love her work!) I expect the first to publish about May with the pre-order coming out in March.
  • The two Kavin Cut Chronicles that will complete the trilogy should be out before summer ends and in eBook and paperback.
  • A fifth book for the Standing Stone series will be hitting the drafting board sometime in August, I expect, and will be out before the end of the year.
  • The Standing Stone series should be out in paperback by summer 2020.
  • If all goes according to plan, this will be the year I publish four perhaps even five books in twelve months, a new record: One Solstice Dragon World, three Kavin Cut Chronicles and one Standing Stone. All will be in paperback shortly after the eBook publication.

So that is the plan, subject to change, of course. The fifth Standing Stone is the one that has the greatest wiggle room. It may have to wait until January 2021 for publication, though the pre-order will definitely go up between October and December 2020.

This year is off to a wonderful start. I hope yours is as well. May you find plenty of lovely books to read, lots of adventure in your world and contentment where it counts the most.

My plans for 2021 are very fluid, so if you have a particular series you wish me to focus on next year, post it in the comments. My fans definitely have pull with me.